


Memory and Dream

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Drama, M/M, Sexual Fantasy, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-19
Updated: 2007-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:51:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus's occlumency skills are compromised after a curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory and Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2007 run of the ADXSS Buggering Bee on Yahoo!Groups. Challenge: _After being hit by a curse, Snape's Occlumency abilities are comprised during his recovery._

_Memory: The windows are all wide open, the headmaster's office filled with the cool and fragrant summer night air. It makes him shiver as he waits in front of the desk, as though the past four years never happened and he's still a schoolboy with frozen, nervous hands folded behind his back. _

_Dumbledore perversely makes him wait until he's finished signing a letter with great flourish, and then looks up with a smile that is at once too knowing and infinitely more welcoming than any that has ever before greeted him in this place. "Mr. Snape, what a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?" _

_Not trusting his voice, Severus does not speak. He meets Dumbledore's bright gaze for only an instant, then unclasps his hands and slowly rolls up his sleeve._

Madam Pomfrey insists that it could have been much worse. One second slower, one inch to the left, and it would have been his skull that was shattered to rubble.

_Dream: He is drunk. Too much wine at dinner, or a spiked Christmas punch. Perhaps it's brandy in the headmaster's sitting room, the two of them alone in reckless informality. He is just slightly helpless, his eyes heavy-lidded and his blood warm. That's why he needn't say anything when the headmaster touches him—a hand on his cheek, cool and merciful. That's why he cannot protest when his robes are opened. _

_"Hush," Dumbledore murmurs in his ear. Hush, hush, hush, and hands all over him, stroking, knowing just how he likes to be touched. Knowing everything. "Close your eyes, Severus. It's going to be all right."_

It isn't until the headmaster slips inside to survey the damage and the memories swarm out like bees that Severus realises death by an Auror's hex would have been a kinder end than death by humiliation.

_Memory: He has been awake for thirty-six hours, fuelled by an endless drip of coffee and a fit of genius. Three cauldrons and one double-boiler are on the fire, and the table is piled high with his notes. He's resorted to spreading the rest of his parchment on the floor, down on his hands and knees drawing compound chains as he fervently explains his findings to the headmaster. _

_ The old man carefully kneels down beside him, his expression of polite interest quickly turning to scholarly delight. A quill joins his own, merely pointing at first and then erupting in a flurry of scribbles, a web of spidery peaks weaving around his own neat hand. "Remarkable, Severus, simply remarkable." _

_He warms._

The headmaster mends the damage as best he can, piecing together the broken remnants of the shell surrounding his innermost thoughts, but there is only so much that can be done. Time and rest, Madam Pomfrey insists. In the meantime, there is surgery: an excision of fifteen years of betrayal, cleaning out the back corners of his mind in the event that he be summoned in the days to come.

There's no chance to fight it by the time he realises just what that entails. He is anaesthetised, held frozen by the enormity of the presence inside his head, and the pensieve is waiting as each suspect memory is cut out of him with razor-sharp precision. He trembles, rage warring with shame. His eyes squeeze tightly shut, but there is no place left to hide. __

_Dream: They're in an empty corridor, in the deserted Great Hall, in the corner of a courtyard—somewhere private and public both at once, with the edge of danger sharpening his pleasure. He is down on his knees, sucking Albus Dumbledore's cock. _

_The brush of velvet robes against his cheek, the wet slide of hot flesh against his lips. The rhythm of it. This isn't the clumsy, distasteful act he knows in life. He's shameless, starving, greedy, clutching. There's a hand in his hair, slowly tightening. A long moan. It spurs him on to wanton abandon, worse than any crib boy, working for his due. _

_"Oh, my Severus..."_

The ghosts left in the empty spaces are the mere memories of memories, wisps of déjà vu that slip through his grasp each time he reaches for them.

_Memory: He returns to the castle in the small hours of the morning, the taste of fear still in his mouth and a stack of essays still unmarked on his desk. The winter wind follows him in, a chill lingering in his bones as he trudges through the southern entrance that leads down to the dungeons. He sleepwalks to his rooms, the corridors dim and silent along the way. There is a lamp lit when he arrives, and dinner is waiting on the sitting room table. _

_He blinks, wary for an instant until he sees the note in handwriting he knows as well as his own. 'Enjoy.' Roast beef and veg under a warming spell, half a loaf of black bread already sliced and buttered, a bowl of trifle and a glass of red wine. His stomach gives a painful grumble, and for a moment it feels as though something has been squeezed tight inside his chest. He cleans his plate and sleeps soundly until dawn._

Stop it. Please, stop. He cannot speak, cannot move, can barely even breathe. __

_Dream: It's dark, the air cool and sweet. He's on elbows and knees—blindfolded, gagged, bound. The rope is snug around his wrists, and he can feel his pulse-points hammering one against the other. _

_"Now, Severus, what am I to do with you?" _

_The barest touch skims down his naked back. He shivers, not in fear but in relief. His face is hidden against the pillows, his eyes covered. It doesn't matter if he weeps or screams, if he thrashes, if he pleads. Slick fingers opening him up. A slap. A kiss. Hissing in pleasure, he takes it all. _

_"Oh, my dear boy..."_

He sucks in a ragged gasp as the presence in his mind draws back, leaving only the faintest touch that teases the raw places where his most private thoughts once were. He flushes hot and tries to sit up, seething, but a firm hand at his shoulder holds him down.

"...oh Severus, you hide so well."

He cannot meet his eyes, his cheeks aflame, but the warmth in the headmaster's voice gives him pause. If he didn't know better, he would almost think that praise.

The pensieve is gently set aside. "I'll keep these safe until you're well again." __

_Memory: "And this as well, if you'd like."_

The headmaster reaches for him.


End file.
